Friday, August 07, 2009

sincerely, john hughes

When LeRoi Moore (DMB) died I read this stunning letter from a mother who had a daughter that Roi had been teaching music to. It was so real and put a face onto a man that millions of people idolized. That was one of the lessons I learned in LA, that celebrities are people who are fallible and not to be put up on a pedestal where they are inevitably going to fall.

I'm not broken up about John Hughes death, but I was really moved by the blog post that I've attached here. One of the things that I loved about Hughes' movies was that although each character was a stereotype he made all of them real people. The jock that everyone looked up to, but who was secretly always trying to please his father and never really happy thus he took it out on the "nerds" in the school. The pretty and popular girl who ran in the right circles but you found out that she really was from a poor family on the wrong side of the tracks. The goth girl who always wore black to school and who constantly tried to shock people with her looks and comments, but who underneath it all just wanted to be loved and cared about by another human being but was too afraid to let anyone close enough to do it, that parents can (and will) forget your birthday.

He taught us that although the outward appearance of someone may project one stereotype, there are so many different layers that created that. The deeper you dig, the more you'll realize they are just like you. Everyone is hurting in one way or another: some people act out, some people retreat inwardly, some take it out on strangers or pretend that their life is perfect and work hard to maintain that illusion.

So next time a server doesn't smile as much as you'd like them to, or someone cuts you off in traffic, or your parents forget your birthday, or your significant other picks a fight with you take a moment to realize that it's probably not about you, know that they just might be having a really bad day...and give them a big smile.

What's it gonna hurt? Give it a try today :)

Alison, the author of the attached blog, was a fan who, when she received a form letter from the "Breakfast Club" fan club after writing a letter to Hughes, angrily wrote back to him and he personally responded. They wrote letters to each other for two years, and expressed to her his dislike for Hollywood, why he decided to leave and what he didn't want it to do to his children, how the loss of John Candy finally made him leave. He was a person to her, and she wrote an obituary for her friend better than any of reporters out there have, and it's worth a read.